Gender Selection — People Are Paying Thousands to Conceive a Girl

For some families, it’s not enough to give birth to a healthy child. They have to give birth to a healthy daughter.

Choosing a child’s gender used to be something from sci-fi novels. Today, however, it has become a $100 million dollar industry that performs up to 6,000 procedures a year.

A recent article on Slate told the story of Megan Simpson (not her real name) who spent a lot of time and money, (four years and over $40,000 to be exact) in order to have a daughter. But what exactly does the process, known as preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD), require and why are so many people risking debt to partake?

According to the article, PGD requires some science and a whole lot of luck. After lab techs fertilize the egg and let it incubate for three days, an embryologist uses a laser to cut through the embryo’s membrane and pick out a cell. With the help of fluorescent dyes, the embryologist is able to see if the cell is carrying larger XX or tinier XY chromosomes. If it looks the be the gender the parents want, they allow the remaining cells to continue to develop.

But even then, there’s no guarantee you”ll have a daughter. For Megan, it took two PGD treatments for her to finally give birth to a girl. So why opt for an expensive procedure that may or may not be more effective than having sex during a full moon or eating chocolate?

For the mother daughter connection. In interviewing several women who underwent or considered PGD, Slate writer Jasmeet Sidhu found that many moms-to-be wanted to recreate the relationship they had with their own mothers. Some even said they wouldn’t know how to raise a boy.

“I’m not into sports. I’m not into violent games. I’m not into a lot of things boys represent and boys do,” Jennifer Merrill Thompson, author of Chasing the Dream who used gender-selection technology, told Slate.

If you have the means (or the willingness to go into debt) and the desire to have a daughter, then maybe PDG is something to consider. If not, there’s always the lemon method (some say if you suck on a lemon before sex, you’re more likely to conceive a girl).

What do you think of gender-selection technology? Would you undergo PGD?

I know plenty of people who wanted and still want a girl. A much smaller number of my family and aquaintances wanted/want a boy. Perhaps because the boys keep on trashing their own toys and running around like maniacs screaming? Yes I know some girls are like that too. But even though when I was a girl I hated dolls and loved playing with cars, I never crashed them into each other or want to play fist fights with my sister or cousins. My cousin hoped for a girl, unfortunately it was not meant to be. Me and my husband were praying for a girl and a prayer has been answered! In three and a half month we will welcome a girl into this world. We already have a boy in the house and we were apprehensive of having another one. He is a very good boy, always huggable and lovable but he also can’t control himself when it comes to the amount of noise and the amount of money we have to spend on new toys. We are hoping to have one boy and two girls in the house, we shall see if next time we are as lucky as this time. And we are also hoping that our boy will learn to be a big brother and stop hating girls verbally and physically.

well i’m going to have to undergo pgd if i want another baby period. it may put me in debt but it’s the only way for me to personaly carry another child bore by their mother and father. pgd is not just for gender selection that’s what they forgot to mention. it’s also to choose the embrios that don’t have a dna mutation. my son was born with retino blastoma ( tumors in the eyes) it’s a genetic mutation that occurs almost always being bilateral ( in both eyes) we’ve gone through 6 treatments of chemo and countless other hospitalizations. i don’t want another child to go through this but i do want at least one more. preferably a daughter. i have my boy and i love him so much. now i want him to have a little sister to protect. i have to risk it and take only one chance to try this.

hmmm seems strange, my family especially my dad keeps talking about how he wants me to have a boy bc aparently you cant do anything with girls. according to him anyway. must be why he loves me sooo much NOT!!!! I think thats why I want a girl so badly so I can say Oh well guest you cant dont anything with my daughter. move on a leave her like you left me.

I’m expecting a boy and I couldn’t be happier. I know there’s going to be times when I won’t know how to handle raising my son but I’ve got a supportive husband who will help with that. Besides, picking the gender takes some of the anticipation out. My husband and I had a lot of fun debating whether we were having a boy or a girl, coming up with all kinds of crazy reasons one way or the other. We actually weren’t in the least bit surprised when it was confirmed that we’re having a son but it still fun guessing. I guess if you’re really determined to have a girl and you have the money to spend on the procedure, it’s your choice but it just doesn’t feel right to me.

Huh. How strange considering baby girls are being murdered just because they are girls! Look up The Three Most Deadliest Words (It’s a Girl) it’s a documentary on you tube. It is really beyond me why anyone would do this, other then for medically necessary reasons. Like for example, there are some genetics disorders that are only passed from mother to son. I have read countless stories of female infanticide, female gender selective abortions and female murder! Look up the World Wide War on Girls on Facebook, according to recent findings there are 200,000 million girls missing world wide today from these horrific and inhumane practices! I mean I guess if you really want a girl and have the money to blow, then it is your business. If that’s what you want to do to be happy then who am I to say other wise. I personally would not do that. It’s against my faith. Fortunately my first child was a girl and my second is a boy. I am very blessed indeed! I have some friends that have all girls and some that have all boys and they all tell me I am very lucky! What I am trying to say is that there is a reason why some people don’t have boys or don’t have girls. I don’t understand why women would say “they don’t know what to do with a boy” it’s so ignorant! It’s like uh love him! WTH! I love my son dearly, I just don’t get why some women say that! My son is loving, caring and sensitive and my daughter likes to rough house and play sports! GEEZ, this is not the 1950’s! I also don’t understand why men would say “I don’t know what to do with a girl” um usually (and I know from experience) these are pedophiles/women abusers and perverted sex feens! I feel like saying to these men, you came from a women, do you have sisters? But I mean there are women who horribly abuse their sons OR their daughters for that matter!

I am very fortunate to be expecting a girl right now. If it was a boy I would love him very much but it was a daughter that me and my husband wanted. Reading your post I thought of at least one reason I could give you why a woman would be so determined to have a boy. Since this is an anonymous post and you will never know who I am, I can tell you that I’ve been abused sexually by two men with the cheering on a group of other males, and I came to abhor the 50 % of the world. I never thought I would fall in love, get married and plan a family. My husband is the only person that knows what happened in my past and realises why I keep away from men and prefer to stay home and watch tv than go clubbing. He convinced me to how good a person he is and he said he knows a few men I could trust but he admits that men are usually sex obsessed and prone to abusing women. In my heart I knew that if I had a son I would do EVERYTHING in my power to teach him to respect girls and women, to treat them as equals and to NEVER try and impose anything on them. When my husband and I learned that we are having a girl , we both started crying from happiness. We both can’t wait for her to be born in this world and I will make sure to make her aware of how focused on sex men are. Hopefully it will save her from what I had to go through.

I would love to have a daughter after my to beautiful sons, but I don’t think I’d go to this extreme. If I’m lucky enough to have a third child I’ll love it regardless. I didn’t think anyone “knows” how to raise a child regardless of the sex…parenthood is a live and learn situation.

It seems to me this article didn’t mention that after slicing and dicing the embryo, if it’s not the sex they want, what do they do? Is the mother forced to “go through with it” or do they destroy the embryo? I have a BIG problem with that when it was totally because of a gender preference. That’s no better than throwing away a baby girl after it’s born in some countries. I’m pretty sure there is a procedure for checking the SPERM first, before fertilization. This way you only use the X or Y, depending on the ones you want, to fertilize with. I’ve always wanted at least 1 girl. I had to do IVF for other reasons. I asked my doctor if we could “manipulate” the sperm to favor more heavily in getting girls and he said there were rules about doing it. Apparently you had to already have at least 1 of the other sex. These were my first kids so we wouldn’t have qualified, even though my husband had 3 boys from a previous marriage. My doctor said “just be happy with what you get considering you only have a 30% chance of conceiving”. And that is really what’s important. I ended up getting pregnant with triplets – 2 boys and 1 girl. I was ecstatic to at least have 1 girl. Unfortunately I miscarried the little girl at 18 weeks. The twin boys were delivered at 29 weeks. I have to just put my faith in God that it wasn’t meant to be. I believe my little girl is a guardian angel to my boys. If she would’ve stayed alive, who knows if my pre-eclampsia would have held off as long as it did. I might have lost all 3 or they would’ve been born even earlier and had other physical or mental issues. I thank God every day for my twin boys that they are totally healthy and I wouldn’t trade for anything in the world. I just pray God holds my little girl in his arms and she knows how much I love and miss her.

my first child, 30 yrs ago is a boy, i was extremely happy with my baby boy and the next year i became pregnant again and thought i would have another boy, it was a girl. they are 30 and 28 now and i dont think i could choose which one i preferred as far as their sex goes. they are so different and both have been blessings. i have remarried and hubby wanted his own so we underwent invitro as i had my tubes tied 28 yrs ago. hubby wanted a boy and of course we had a girl. hubby has been in love with our baby girls since the moment the nurse put her in his arms. we 6 months later tried for a 2nd ivf baby and hubby has his boy. we love them equally and are now going for a 3rd ivf baby and neither of us care what sex the baby will be if we are fortunate enough to become pregnant again. hubby considered pgd with the ivf for our 2nd child but i felt it would lessen our chances undergoing another procedure on the few embryos we have. i have a sister in law that has 4 boys and would have loved to have had at least one daughter. i have a neice that has 3 boys and would also love to try for a girl but feels she is not healthy enough to endure a 4th pregnancy. i feel so blessed with my two older children and my two younger children. i also have a grandson and a grandaughter the same age as my two younger children and they are wonderful playmates.

Or you could just really stress yourself out. I read somewhere that you’re more likely to have a girl if either you or your husband (I can’t remember which, but probably husband since it’s his sperm who determine gender) is stressed out at the time of conception. I’m constantly stressed out, and I had a girl, which must make it true (ha). Should be easy- just think of how much all those hairbows and outfits will cost (not to mention college), and the fact that she’ll want to date someday!

Dont know how to raise a boy? Just let the kid grow up and develop their own personality. You don’t HAVE to be into EVERYTHING that they’re into. Just love and support them in the path they choose. That’s parenting. Who expects their children to be 100% exactly like them and liking the same things they like? Thats just selfish.

So the fertilized eggs that turn out to not be girls obviously…do the parents still give birth to those babies? I mean it seems like a waste of money to do something you could have done naturally,and if you are having the babies that don’t end up as girls, you are going to end up with 5 boys and then a girl, you might as well go the natural way. And by asking about whether they keep the boys, I am not saying I approve of termination of pregnancy…I was just wondering what happens since these women are so hell bent on getting a girl…

This article is really stupid. The reason it’s dumb is because instead of talking about the real use of PGD it describes an outlier. Almost all people who are forced to use PGD aren’t doing so to have a baby of the sex they want, they are using it to help prevent having a baby with a genetic mutation. Why doesn’t this article discuss the actual uses of PGD? Because the author is trying to make a helpful procedure into an interesting story. Boo to the Bump for even publishing it!

“I’m not into sports. I’m not into violent games. I’m not into a lot of things boys represent and boys do”

…Okay, so what if your GIRL wants to play sports or video games? Whether or not their video games are violent is entirely in your control, regardless of the baby’s sex. Choosing PGD for reasons like that is horrible. It’s just reinforcing the outdated, harmful gender dichotomy that’s still plaguing our society. Whatever sex your child is, he or she should be encouraged to pursue whatever interests they like, play with whatever toys they like, or wear whatever they want. Screw gender constructs.